Topband: Fun things about voltages at the top of verticals...OT

[lstoskopf at cox.net]

Back in the 60s and 70s when CB was the big deal:  Wheat combines with 16 foot headers were often loaded on trucks by custom harvesters  for their annual work progression from Texas to Canada.  Crews would often have a contest each day of travel to see which could get the largest amount of little balls from the CB antennas going by.  Loser had to buy the beer for the night.  Betting those corona balls were to protect eyes rather than corona.  No, not talking beer.

On another topic:  In the 70s I had a fiberglass mast made of 4 inch pipe from oil field use with a 6 element top hat of about 16 ft diameter up about 25 ft.  Neighbors hated it.  Had a large coil of TWT wire right under the hat for 160 loading.  Had fun with it.  One night decided to see if it would load on 20M.  Found a match and was running a Dentron MLA 2500 into it on 20.  Neighbor called to tell me that the top of my antenna was on fire.  Not sure whether it was arcing or a high current, but pretty much finished that coil.

N0UU